For the wireless network (such as the Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) or the Wireless Metropolitan Area Network (WMAN)), the security problem is much more serious than that of the wired Ethernet. The Radio Frequency Identification label (RFID) also faces the security problem. The problem of security authentication and key negotiation between the reader/writer and the electronic label in the RFID must be effectively addressed before secure communication.
Generally, electronic labels may be classified into three types depending on using situations and application environments: 1) a readable and writable high-level electronic label with certain storage space and calculation capacity; 2) a mid-level electronic label with similar functions as the high-level electronic label except for a little bit lower performance; and 3) a low-level electronic label, which is only used to record some data information and ensures the information being readable to a reader/writer. Generally, the low-level electronic label has no capacity of storage, calculation and information rewriting. Price labels of commodities in the supermarket belong to low-level electronic labels.
For the former two types of electronic labels, the security of the channel between the electronic label and the reader/writer can be ensured through an authentication protocol. For the third type of electronic label, it is not practicable to achieve the security through the existing authentication scheme, because this type of electronic label itself as media merely storing information has neither calculation and storage capacity nor identity information, etc. . . . . For example, the security schemes such as the WLAN Authentication and Privacy Infrastructure (WAPI) security protocol in the WLAN, the IEEE802.11i and the WMAN IEEE802.16e and so on require all parties of the protocol to have basic performance of calculation and storage, etc. Therefore, such security schemes may be applied to the former two electronic labels more or less, but may not be applied to the third electronic label at all. Therefore, the security of the third type of electronic label described above must be implemented by a new designed security scheme.